AGP 8X vs 4X

[Seizure]

Does this make that much a difference. I'll be gettin a Radeon 9500 NP that's been confirmed to softmod. My motherboard is an old Epox 8k7a and only has AGP 4x.

Does AGP 8x make that much of a difference. I want to upgrade my motherbaord, but I want to do it until after the Athlon 64's come out because I hear they are discontinuing the old Socket A motherboard right?

 

[MDE]

There is almost no difference between 8x and 4x.

 

[BoomAM]

Originally posted by: MonkeyDriveExpress
There is almost no difference between 8x and 4x.

 

[modedepe]

You might lose a whole 1 or 2 fps cause you're using 4x instead of 8x.

 

[mooncancook]

I have the same question with my 9500Pro running in AGP4x too. I wonder if there is any performance gain for running it in a AGP8x motherboard, but i doubt if any card today is fast enough to utilize the AGP8x bandwidth... at least not the 9500 i think. and it brings up the question of why the heck companies release AGP8x version of Geforce4MX as new faster product or something. marketing conspiracy...

 

[Corporate Thug]

Originally posted by: BoomAM

Originally posted by: MonkeyDriveExpress
There is almost no difference between 8x and 4x.

 

[Seizure]

coo. Thanks guys.

 

[AkumaX]

i remember reading somewhere that like 4x was equivalent to somewhere around ~3.5x, while 8x was ~3.55x 😛

 

[ethebubbeth]

pretty much nothing... if you get to the point where you are ferrying textures back and forth across the agp bus to main memory it won't matter whether you have 4x or 8x... it's all about the clock speed of the bus itself.

 

[BFG10K]

if you get to the point where you are ferrying textures back and forth across the agp bus to main memory it won't matter whether you have 4x or 8x...

Remember that textures aren't the only data that is sent across AGP.

I do agree with everyone here though - AGP x8 isn't needed right now but it'll probably become more important when the next generation of games are out.

 

[BoomAM]

I dont think current cards, future cards or future games will saturate the AGP4x bus to warrent the need for AGP8x. By the time we see games and cards that need more than AGP4x, PCI-X will be standard.

 

[Regs]

I know 8x is worthless for games right now, but does it affect 3DMarks 2003?

Im trying to figure out why my Kt333/9800 Radeon set up is doing so poorly in the benchmark. Im getting 15,000+ in 2001 but only 2700 in 2003.